


Christine Palmer, Sixteen Hours Later

by MissIzzy



Series: Walking Behind With a Bucket [15]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Night Nurses have each other's backs, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16141553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: No rest for any of the city's surviving medical personnel yet.





	Christine Palmer, Sixteen Hours Later

Her shift should’ve ended at midnight, and Christine’s not sure how much longer she actually can go on; she’s already resorted to stimulant pills for the first time in many years. It stopped being a triage situation a while ago, and right now there are finally no more new patients coming in, but the moments when she’s staggering off to get more supplies is the first time she’s spent more than half a minute not directly working on someone in well over an hour.

The rest of the staff wasn’t too happy that she insisted on doing it herself instead of sending one of the nurses. Although most of them have more experience at the kind of work they’re doing right now than she does. Even so, she probably should’ve sent one of the ones that had remained in touch with Claire even after she’d walked out of this place. Maria, who first got the text from her brother just saying  _Night Nurse incoming_  and passed that on, could’ve done it.

But Christine needs to see her for herself. Most of the people she thinks of as friends are either dead or missing, and her friendship with Claire has already helped keep her sane more than once, including recently when Stephen was apparently abducted by aliens. Ironically it started after Claire had already left her own superhero ex and tried to step away from that scene. She kind of succeeded, though she’s now instead the main medic for New York’s underground Inhuman community. Christine assumes this current supply run is to treat them, undocumented immigrants, and other people who can’t go to the hospital.

Claire’s already gathering what she needs up; mostly bandaging and similar. Calm, cool, and collected, like Christine’s supposed to be right now. “Need anything in particular?” she asks her in greeting.

“I’m probably about to be treating a lot of burns,” Claire answers, rummaging through one cabinet. “After the initial riots died down, well, that’s when everyone started to figure out who’s dead and who isn’t, and after that, flames started to go up in Harlem. I’m sure the cops’ll figure out who was targeted, but…” She shrugs. “You’ll probably start getting patients here from it soon yourself; I’ll leave you plenty.”

“Thanks for that,” Christine answers, and she grabs more ointment and gels than she would have otherwise. “The way you took out the last time isn’t going to work tonight. You can take the emergency exit right behind us; it got knocked open and the alarm’s still disabled, and there aren’t too many people in this part of the hospital right now. You need help getting back to Harlem? How are the roads?”

“Getting a little clearer around midtown, but still not good. Maria’s brother got me here on his bike.”

There are a thousand more things each of them could say, but there’s no time for any of it. There’s only time for a quick hug, and murmurs of “Good luck,” and then they’re out into the hall and heading in opposite directions. Christine has to remind herself that she’ll probably see her again.

She’s feeling very calm indeed as she returns to what first got designated the triage ward around eleven that morning-well, the previous morning, now. Still exhausted, and down to the soles of her feet, but even that’s dulled itself down until she’s not feeling it as much as she would normally.

They’ve even started moving some of the patients out, as well as those they couldn’t save. Thankfully there weren’t too many of those, but all the vehicle crashes especially took their toll. Christine has time to distribute out her wares to different nurses, including Maria, whispering to her, “Wide-scale fires in Harlem.” She has to leave her to get the word around to the other nurses, since a moment later she’s running over to where one of the more recent arrivals is going into shock.


End file.
